Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-07
EMPLOYMENT FOR GIRLS.

Mrs. Kinney, representing the San
Francisco Girls Union, has been inter
viewed concerning an investigation now
going on before Labor Commissioner
Tobin, into the condition of youthful
laborers in California. Mrs. Kinney and
her co-laborers are working to fit girls for
useful employments. The Union gives
deserving girls a home, trains them for
domestic and other honorable service and
secures them places where they can earn a
decent livelihood and maintain an honora-
Bile personal record. She declares, in an
interview published in the Alta:
The presence of the Chinese is one of the
chief reasons for the deplorable condition OF
working girls and women on this coast In the
East girls and women will gladly enter certain
classes of employment, and deem them h0nora-
BILE but out here that same kind of employment
will be looked upon as debaSing simply because
Cinnamon have or do engage in it. There is,
too. a widespread belief that manual labor is
not honorable, ana until this false sentiment is
done away with it will be hard TO elevate our
working girls. At present SIS per head is paid
By the city to the Sisters Of the Magdalen Asy-
SIS to the state for means of reclaiming the
fallen girl, it certainly is worth that sum to
provide means for preventing one from ia ling.
If some society were given that amount for
each girl under its care. 1t could easily support
girls upon it and give them every opportunity
for learning business. In seeking situations
women are often subjected to insulting PROPOSE
tons We furnish homes here for those who
apply, and do what we can TO get them employ
ment, but of course, ii often becomes necessary
for girls to go out seeking employment or to
advertise. Our experience mas been such that
no girl here Will ever again advertise for POSI-
tion as housekeeper. or for any similar position
There has hardly been q case in which such
advertisements were inserted but degrading
offers were made in reply. We could furnish
LOCO respectable ard intelligent d0meStics II
wo could be assured that they would be well
treated.
Such a statement as this should make
society put on its thinking cap. Its pres
ent method, we have no doubt whatever
is calculated to degrade girls who are COM
PEELED to labor for diving" The ways
Of vice begin easily and are inviting the
path for women to honorable labor is beset
with pitfalls and ambushed by the de-
vouring. In thee of women, protection
Is letter than rescue as well as with men,
If society continues to handicap women in
the matter of employment, it must expect
them to fall by the way. With the as
saults upon virtue, the temptation to lives
of ease and the competition of Chinese in
domestic service, at the sewing machine
and in light manufactures, all the odds are
against female workers. Here now is an
opportunity for people of means to aid
institutions that shield homeless girls,
train them to useful employment and give
them shelter when out of employment but
which at no time maintain them in idle
ness. 1t is work that should be engaged
in more largely and should enlist the good
offices of all humanitarians.